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PRODUCTION Norway, US

Headhunters headhunted for American HBO television series

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- Sweden’s Yellow Bird Entertainment will develop Norwegian author Jo Nesbø’s 2008 thriller about the corporate headhunter who himself becomes the hunted

Headhunters headhunted for American HBO television series

Sweden’s Yellow Bird Entertainment will develop an American television series from Norwegian author Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters [+see also:
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 (photo) for US network HBO, with US writer-producer Alexander Woo (True Blood), producer Carolyn Strauss (Game of Thrones) and Lionsgate Television. The company purchased the rights shortly after the thriller was published in 2008.

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It is Yellow Bird’s third US television deal for Nordic writers within a month, after signing with Chernin Entertainment to adapt Swedish author Robert Kariel’s upcoming thriller The Swede for 20th Century Fox TV, and with TBD Entertainment to transfer a thriller from Swedish author Liza Marklund for ABC.

Headhunters was first filmed for Norwegian director Morten Tyldum’s 2011 action thriller with Aksel Hennie, Synnøve Macody Lund and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, following a corporate headhunter, who lives above his means and stealing art on the side to keep up. When he has planned his biggest coup he runs into trouble: the headhunter becomes the hunted.

Scripted by Lars Gudmestad and Ulf Rybjerg, the Marianne Grey (Yellow Bird) and Asle Vatn (Friland) production is the 3rd highest-grossing Norwegian film of all time – it took 557,086 admissions to place No 2 on the 2012 charts (after Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows). The first Norwegian nominee for a BAFTA Award in the UK as Best Foreign-Language Film, it won the People’s Amanda, Norway’s national film prize.

Woo, who is currently consulting producer on TNT’s Legends, will adapt Nesbø’s 2008 novel for the HBO series, which will be executive produced by Yellow Bird’s Grey and Berna Levin, with Woo, Strauss and Lionsgate.

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